We’re back! The latest entry in our comprehensive score rankings is here, and this time, we’re taking on all 12 (as of this writing) feature films – plus a few other relevant extras – in the Friday the 13th franchise!

Feel free to check out our previous rankings here.

We’ve already taken a listen to and ranked the scores from A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, so it’s only fitting that we celebrate the spooky season by capping off our musical look at the trilogy of 80s slashers with Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th.

Unlike those other franchises – indeed, unlike MOST other franchises, Friday the 13th has had a single composer do a lion’s share of the work. Apart from a few exceptions, Harry Manfredini singlehandedly created the sound of this franchise. Indeed, he and Jason are the two defining features of the series. Without both of them, it just doesn’t feel like Friday the 13th.

Since Manfredini scored (or co-scored or contributed to) almost all of them, there’s heavy overlap, and ultimately, they all kind of blend into one another. Still, this franchise, above all others, has a consistency of sound other franchises can only dream of. It’s just a shame it’s not a better sound.

Don’t get me wrong; the music fits the films perfectly. The scores just aren’t what I’d call… enjoyable listening. These aren’t soundtracks I return to for inspiration or play in the background while working. There’s no theme, no melody, no hook to make them “enjoyable.”

But in a franchise that spans 12 feature films with 11 different directors, having a primary go-to composer really helped solidify the series as a cohesive whole (especially since the plots didn’t always do that).

Where Michael Myers has an infectiously hummable piano theme and Freddy Krueger has a haunting playground rhyme, Jason Voorhees gets… two echoed syllables. Though it’s often written as “ch-ch-ch ah-ah-ah,” the sounds are actually “ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma.”

Manfredini explains, “Inspiration was from a scene in the film where we see an extreme close up of Mrs. Voorhees’s mouth saying, ‘Kill her, Mommy!’ She keeps repeating it over and over in a strange high-pitched voice which could be interpreted as the sound of her son Jason’s voice. That hit me! She was hearing voices in her head! I took the initial consonants K and M and went to a microphone and pronounced them as dramatically as I could. We echo-repeated them and there you have it, ‘ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma’… This gave the killer a voice.”

Keep in mind that we’re not here today to talk about the merits of the films themselves. We’re here to talk about the music. We’re ranking the orchestral scores – not the movies (which is an entirely other conversation).

I should also mention that La-La Land Records recently reissued complete – and completely remastered – scores for the first six films (and the video game). All quotes included here come from the liner notes to those releases. In addition, Waxwork Records has released the soundtracks for the first seven films on vinyl (with killer new artwork), and Part VIII is coming later this year.

So without further ado…

#14: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

• aka: the one where Jason is a parasitic worm
• composed by Harry Manfredini (1993)

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the final Friday.

This was Manfredini’s 8th score for the franchise, and I think he was just phoning it in at this point. Completely unremarkable.

#13: Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning

• aka: the one with a Jason imposter… and is the undisputed worst of the franchise
• composed by Harry Manfredini (1985)

The score is mostly forgettable, unlike the film, which I wish I could forget. Filled with loads of piercing strings and low bass meant to telegraph impending dread to the audience, this one at least adds a little interest with the addition of bass saxophone – for the first time in the franchise, woodwinds are featured prominently.

Manfredini also introduces snippets of the 13th century Dies Irae, a Roman Catholic requiem mass written by Italian friar Thomas of Celano, which is used as a secondary motif for Jason. This becomes more prominent in Part VI.

Per Manfredini, “I had to work much harder to prove to the audience that it was really Jason. I had to kick up the tension. I went over-the-top in some cases just to make it seem a bit more horrific, with the idea that it would keep the audience a bit off-kilter throughout the film.”

#12: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

• aka: the one that finally left Crystal Lake but was only partially in Manhattan and mostly on a spooky cruise ship
• composed by Fred Mollin (1989)

Of the franchise’s 10 core films (not counting the reboot or spinoff), this is the only score not credited to Harry Manfredini at all. Fred Mollin wasn’t a stranger to the franchise since he worked on the previous film and was scoring the TV series at the same time, but this one is unavoidably – and obviously – different from the rest. And it just doesn’t fit.

#11: Friday the 13th Part III

• aka: the one that’s in 3D… and introduces the hockey mask
• composed by Harry Manfredini & Michael Zager (1982)

Though he’s credited as the composer of Part III, Manfredini only wrote a few minutes of new music for the first and last reels. At the time, he was busy writing Play Me a Country Song for Broadway (which apparently only played a single performance in 1982), so music editor Jack Tillar cobbled together a score using recordings from the first two films. And Michael Zagar came in to write an opening and closing theme that practically screams 1982 with its disco influences.

Though the score is an impressive technical and editorial feat by Tillar, it ultimately just telegraphs how the audience is supposed to react, and it doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

#10: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

• aka: the one with a telekinetic protagonist
• composed by Harry Manfredini & Fred Mollin (1988)

Manfredini’s name is on this one, but he didn’t score it (because of prior film engagements, including Sean Cunningham’s DeepStar Six). Instead, Fred Mollin composed this film and, along with his own new music, heavily used tracks from Manfredini’s previous scores. Surprisingly, The New Blood actually has a musical theme that’s NOT the ubiquitous “ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma” effect, but it gets painfully repetitive by the end.

Interestingly, this score was for many years thought to have been lost. It was recently discovered and released earlier this year (on vinyl by Waxwork Records) for the first time in any format.

#9: Friday the 13th Part 2

• aka: the one with Jason wearing a bag over his head
• composed by Harry Manfredini (1981)

Really, this is just an extension of the first – in almost every sense. Manfredini uses the same sonorities, melodic fragments, and harmony. He even used the same 13 musicians and recorded in the same basement studio as the first film. “I stayed with all the same material and approached it the same way as the first film as much as I could.”

Even though the two scores are similar in many respects, Manfredini explains his different approach: “The film has now changed from what was previously a ‘who-is-doing-this’ mystery thriller to a straight-up horror film. . . . The scoring lesson here is understanding how music is essentially reduced to support ‘tension-chase-kill’ with the occasional red herring thrown in to maintain suspense.”

#8: Friday the 13th: The Series

• aka: the one connected to the rest of this list in name only
• composed by Fred Mollin (1987-1990)

Most people don’t remember there was a Friday the 13th TV series. It ran for three seasons and 72 episodes in the late 80s, but it wasn’t connected to the film series at all. It didn’t feature Jason, it wasn’t set at Camp Crystal Lake, and it wasn’t a slasher horror. Rather, it felt more like an anthology horror show in the vein of Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside.

Fred Mollin (who lent a hand to the scores for films 7 and 8), composed all the music for the series, which is decidedly different than Manfredini’s Jason-centric music. Indeed, the main theme for the show is… dare I say it… hummable!

The soundtrack is primarily computerized and synth – as opposed to orchestral – but it’s downright listenable, even if you’ve never seen the show.

#7: Freddy vs Jason

• aka: the one that matched up the wisecracking and silent killers
• composed by Graeme Revell (2003)

The team-up/throwdown every 80s kid dreamed about. There’s two ways this could have gone… and the music could have followed. Despite the insane conceit of the film and less-than-inspired storyline, composer Graeme Revell scored this film as if it were a legitimately great horror film. It incorporates occasional cues from each franchise (the jump rope rhyme from Nightmare and the “ooh ooh ah ah” music from Friday), but it also has its own unique themes. Revell is also well versed with the music of genre films, and he brought a career’s worth of experience to the score.

#6: Friday the 13th

• aka: the one that rebooted everything
• composed by Steve Jablonsky (2009)

Steve Jablonsky has a two-sided career. On one side, he’s a frequent collaborator on big-budget explosion films with Michael Bay (including all those Transformers movies) and Peter Berg. On the other, he’s well versed with horror (he also composed the reboots of A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

His score for the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot is certainly the most “modern” sounding soundtrack on this list. Like his score for 2010’s Nightmare, most of this score is a good old-fashioned scare-em-up. It’s creepy, dark, and scary – which is exactly on point.

#5: Friday the 13th: The Game

• aka: the one where YOU are Jason
• composed by Harry Manfredini (2018)

Friday the 13th: The Game began life as a project called Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp. However, when Sean Cunningham approached and joined forces with Gun Media, the game’s developers, it morphed into an entirely new game… after raising an eye-popping $1.2 million on Kickstarter. Ultimately, the game came out on PS4, Xbox One, and Steam and brought back Harry Manfredini to score his first Friday the 13th project in 17 years.

Rather than utilize a live, full orchestra, Manfredini made economical use of computer technology and samples. He also wrote music in “modules” to avoid repetitive looping, and the modules blend into one another during gameplay. Because a game demands so much more music than a standard 90-minute movie, there’s a lot of music to be found here, and it’s the culmination of Manfredini’s career with Jason Voorhees… incorporating four decades of musical knowledge and expertise.

#4: Jason X

• aka: the one that goes to spaaaace
• composed by Harry Manfredini (2001)

This was Manfredini’s 9th and final Friday the 13th score (until he worked on the video game nearly 20 years later). The franchise went to space… and the music followed. Surprisingly, parts of this score would feel at home as background music for Halloween night at a science museum or planetarium. At times, it’s almost lyrical, which is unheard of among these scores. In the end, Jason X sounds like a legit film score, rather than just a collection of scary cues. Also, I could be wrong, but I think this was the first (and only?) score to use synth and electronic sounds – something its two rival slasher franchises embraced much earlier… to varying degrees of success.

#3: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

• aka: the one with the worst small-town cop of all time
• composed by Harry Manfredini (1986)

The sixth installment in the franchise had a lot to make up for after the dismal fifth film, which left a lot of fans feeling betrayed and let down. Likewise, the music needed to up the ante and convince audiences that Jason – and his scares – were really and truly back.

To that end, Manfredini had the largest orchestra to date on Jason Lives. His music – which features a lot plucked strings and a harp! – conveys a sense of impending dread rather than jump-scare horror. In 1986, when I’m sure the temptation was strong to go all in with “easy” synth tracks, Manfredini resisted the urge and kept the old-school sound that defined Friday the 13th.

#2: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

• aka: the one with Corey Feldman in the creepiest role of his career
• composed by Harry Manfredini (1984)

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the final chapter.

Because of the number of MPAA-mandated edits to avoid an X rating – and the film’s crazy post-production schedule – the score for The Final Chapter includes some cues and tracks from previous films (again edited together by Jack Tillar), but it wasn’t nearly as much as on Part III.

Indeed, Manfredini’s new music here is surprisingly lush and orchestral. It’s certainly thriller-esque and scary, but it still manages to be melodic and… gasp… pretty!

#1: Friday the 13th

• aka: the one with Kevin Bacon… and Jason’s mom
• composed by Harry Manfredini (1980)

I’ll admit, the original soundtrack might not be the “best” of the franchise by some metrics, but it’s certainly the most impressive. Director Sean Cunningham had a mere $5,000 music budget for the film, and Manfredini (who had worked with Cunningham previously) basically did it as a favor for his friend. The score was recorded with just 13 musicians in a New Jersey basement.

Manfredini and Cunningham also made the decision to only use music during POV shots from the unknown killer. In other words, music was used to emphasize the killer’s presence (or trick you into thinking the killer was present, in a couple cases). When the killer wasn’t around – there was no music.

And that music – though it has some echoes of John Williams’s Jaws theme, features dissonant, piercing strings and musical “jump scares.” Manfredini also employed an orchestron, “a hysterically funny pre-synth gizmo that was something like a mellotron but used optical tracks” to mimic a choir.